<p>Hey. </p>
<p>I went on the PSU website and looked around both the Smeal business site and the Schreyer Honors College site, but couldn't really find confirmation on this.</p>
<p>Can I apply to both of those programs, and then hopefully major in finance while still being in the Honors Program?</p>
<p>Thanks for the help.</p>
<p>yea my brother did it</p>
<p>yes, you can be in both Schreyer and Smeal. There are about 30 Schreyer Smeal freshman each year (not many!)
Smeal also has an honors program called "Sapphire". It's not as hard to get into - but still a nice program. I think about 80 kids qualify. Smaller cohort classes, and accelerated coursework would be part of the deal. No scholarship money as far as I know.</p>
<p>You get an automatic invite to Sapphire based on your stats...no application.</p>
<p>Yes you can do both, and I would highly recommend it.</p>
<p>You can not do both Sapphire and Schreyer though</p>
<p>second what swoopes says. And it's a sore point...I've heard a number of students and parents complain about this.<br>
Schreyer students can be involved in some Sapphire (Smeal Scholar) events if they push hard enough. They don't make it easy though... and I must say the distinctive programs cause a fair amount of confusion. For example, they have dedicated study abroad programs for Sapphire students...but not for Schreyer students.
And some business networking events for Sapphire but not for Schreyer.<br>
Personally I think think they could do a much better job coordinating these "honors" opportunities. Schreyer folks say they are more of a overall scholar program -whereas Sapphire is Smeal specific. Yeah...but why block scholars from special opportunities offered in their specific school? It seems there are some politics involved...<br>
I think they can REALLY improve on this...</p>
<p>i agree toneranger. it is definitley something that Schreyer and Smeal need to work on</p>
<p>ooh ok. </p>
<p>since there's a choice involved, would you recommend applying to Schreyer or Smeal then?</p>
<p>tnb
uh oh... I think we confused you. These dualing honors programs (Schreyer and Sapphire) ARE confusing.
Apply to both Smeal AND Schreyer. If you don't make it into Schreyer, you may get an invite to join the Sapphire program.
Any Schreyer folks monitoring this board who can explain this better? It's really a sign that things need to change. Why not let the Schreyer kids participate in both?</p>
<p>That was my mistake....the S names got to me :). </p>
<p>I meant, should I apply to SAPPHIRE or Smeal...I'm applying to the business school regardless. </p>
<p>And now I just read one of your above posts that says there's no app to Sapphire, so I'm just going to stop talking now haha. </p>
<p>Thanks for the info!</p>
<p>Just a point of clarification: Sapphire is NOT an honors program. It is an accelerated program and ANY Schreyer Scholar in Smeal should have access. If they do not they should drop me an email or meet with me.
cbrady @ psu.edu</p>
<p>Christian M M Brady, D.Phil.
Dean, Schreyer Honors College
The Pennsylvania State University
<a href="http://shc.psu.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://shc.psu.edu/</a>
<a href="http://engage.shc.psu.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://engage.shc.psu.edu/</a>
814-865-2631
AIM: drcbrady</p>
<p>Hello Dean Brady! Welcome to CC and I am glad you are posting. There are always some threads and questions about Schreyer Honors College and parents and students usually do a fine job answering them. But your perspective would be welcomed. Thanks for posting!</p>
<p>Hi Dean Brady,
Nice to hear from you on this board. Welcome!
If you go on the Smeal site, you'll see a description of the Sapphire program and the following is prominently noted in italics:
"It is important to note that students may not participate in both the Sapphire Program and the Schreyer Honors College".
So I do believe that there is an issue here...unless of course you really push to get involved. IMO, Schreyer kids should be automatically invited to the Sapphire events and networking to expose them more to business opportunities. Schreyer is a TERRIFIC program - and your team does a nice job of setting up networking opportunities as well. But unless it's just marketing, Sapphire seems to offer some significant additional - and different- opportunities. I'm not I fully understand why the standard "rule" is that you can't do both.<br>
When we were looking at schools, a rep from Schreyer said "All Schreyers are Sapphires but not all Sapphires are Schreyers." This seems in direct contradiction to what is posted on the website.<br>
So, in any case, this is confusing to some of us...</p>
<p>Toneranger, thank you for pointing that out. I will work with Dean Thomas and his staff to get some of this cleared up. It is true that no SHC students are not concurrently enrolled at this time in Sapphire (to the best of my knowledge), but they ARE supposed to have equal access to the Sapphire courses and events. (Just as we keep SHC courses open, after initial registration, and our events are generally open to ALL PSU students.) We do need to work on the implementation of this. </p>
<p>I should point out that their site also notes that Sapphire is not an honors program. But we do need to get this language cleared up and the process needs to be streamlined as well.</p>
<p>Dean Brady: It's great that you will look into this. It seems as if you have a good model of a cooperative program between a specific school and the honors college with the Liberal Arts Fellows program (which you write about in your other posts). Not that it's exactly the same, but it demonstrates a strong cooperative relationship between the school and the college.
Open access is one thing...a strong cooperative relationship would seem to bring it to another level. If the programs are that different (honors vs accelerated), why not formally invite Schreyer scholars to be Sapphire program participants? If they're interested, they'll join. Seems strange to run them as separate tracks and to prohibit formal participation in both.<br>
Thanks again for your attention.</p>